Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Yes, I recently watched a woman do this. Luckily not from behind her car.

Whether you walk, bike, or drive, you are at risk from those who take their attention off the road to see what's on their phone. For what? A cute cat picture? Something to pick up from the store?

Is it worth a life?

As my regular readers know, I have some strong opinions about using a cell phone while driving that go well beyond "don't."

At highway speeds, in the time it takes you to glance away from the road to look at your phone, even just to see who called, you're covering the length of a football field.

How many bodies is that?

Remember when cigarette smokers claimed they weren't hurting anyone but themselves so they should be able to smoke where and when they liked? Smoking laws arose because enough people decided that it simply wasn't true.

When the cellphone-while-driving body-count gets high enough, maybe we'll decide it isn't true that drivers can safely share that much attention with the road.

In the meantime, while the pile of bodies is still not large enough to get our culture's keen attention on the matter, how do we convince people not to text and drive?

One way is to insist that they do. In 2012, a Brussels Driving Centre required teens to text during a driving test. See what happened here. What would it take to include something like this on the practical part of the drivers' test?

Another way is to use the technology itself. It would be relatively easy to write an app that tracks cell phone motion patterns to determine if someone is driving or not, and then whether they are texting or talking, and report that to their auto-insurance company. Or the police. Anyone working on this? Can I help?

And lastly, social condemnation can move mountains. You know that look you give someone when they light up a cigarette near the picnic table at which you and your family are eating? Do that. Scowl. Shake your head. Wag your finger.

Just be careful and stay out of the direct line from their car to your body. Bad judgment while driving is not limited to cell phone use.